Stephen H. answered • 11/26/14
AP Calculus AB/BC, GED & more - M.Ed. w/ 10+ yrs of experience
Meredith, When you have a constant (36 in this case) times a variable (x^6 in this case), you can take the square root of each of those individually and then combine your answer in the end. So the problem can be solved by finding sqrt(36) and the sqrt(x^6). The sqrt(36)=6, since 6*6=36. The sqrt(x^6)=x^3, since x^3*x^3. So our final answer would be 6x^3. (As a side note, another way to find the square root of a variable is to raise it to the power 1/2. Anything to the power 1/2 is a square root. Therefore, to find sqrt(x^6) you could set up (x^6)^(1/2) since ^(1/2) means square root. A power raised to a higher power like (x^6)^(1/2) results in the powers being multiplied together, i.e. 6*(1/2)=3, therefore, (x^6)^(1/2)=x^3 is another way to take square root of a variable)
